Another important article in universal use among the Indians of the main land, north and south, was the tobacco pipe. Tobacco was used by the natives of the West India islands, made up in rolls or cigars; but by the Indians of the continent it was broken up, carried in small bags attached to a girdle round the body, and smoked through clay, stone or copper pipes, sometimes of very elaborate workmanship. Smoking the pipe was of universal use among them, both on ordinary and extraordinary occasions. It was a tender of hospitality to strangers; and a sign of peace and friendship between the nations. [Footnote: For a full and interesting account of the importance of the tobacco-pipe among the Indians of North America, upon cited authorities, we refer the reader to Antiquities of the Southern Indians. By Charles C. Jones Jr., p. 382. (New York, 1873.)] When Captain Waymouth ran along the coast of the great bay of Massachusetts, in 1605, he repeatedly encountered this custom. On one occasion the natives came from the shore in three canoes, and Rosier remarks of them: "they came directly aboord us and brought us tobacco, which we tooke with them IN THEIR PIPE which was made of earth very strong, but blacke and short, containing a great quantity. When we came at shoare they all most kindely entertained us, taking us by the hands, as they had observed we did to them aboord in token of welcome, and brought us to sit downe by their fire, where sat together thirteene of them. They filled their tobacco pipe, which was then the short claw of a lobster, which will hold ten of our pipes full and we dranke of their excellent tobacco, as much as we would with them." [Footnote: Purchas, IV. 1662.] No notice is taken of this custom, either of tobacco or the pipe in the Verrazzano letter. The most remarkable omission of all is of the bark canoe. This light and beautiful fabric was peculiar to the Algonkin tribes. It was not found among the southern Indians, much less in the West India islands. Its buoyancy and the beauty of its form were such as to render it an object of particular observation. Though so light as to be capable of being borne on a man's shoulders, it would sometimes carry nine men, and ride with safety over the most stormy sea. It was always from the first a great object of interest with the discoverers of the northerly parts of the coast, which they manifested by taking them back to Europe, as curiosities. Aubert carried one of them to Dieppe in 1508, and Captain Martin Fringe, who was one of the first to visit the shores of Cape Cod, took one, in 1603, thence to Bristol, which he thus describes, as if he saw no other kind.